Press Releases: Gemini Observatory

15 September 2020: For the first time, an intact, giant exoplanet has been discovered orbiting close to a white dwarf star. This discovery shows that it is possible for Jupiter-sized planets to survive their star’s demise and settle into close orbits around the remaining stellar ember, near the habitable zone. This foretells one possible future for our own Solar System when the Sun ages into a white dwarf.

25 August 2020: A report by experts representing the global astronomical community, concludes that large constellations of bright satellites in low Earth orbit will fundamentally change ground-based optical and infrared astronomy and could impact the appearance of the night sky for stargazers worldwide. The report is the outcome of the recent SATCON1 virtual workshop, which brought together more than 250 scientists, engineers, satellite operators, and other stakeholders.

24 August 2020: When Comet NEOWISE (C/2020 F3) sped through the inner Solar System during the middle of 2020, astronomers and the general public watched in awe as this “dirty snowball” shed gas and dust into space, producing a striking show visible to the naked eye. Close-up observations, led by Michal Drahus and Piotr Guzik of Jagiellonian University in Krakow, used the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, to observe the materials escaping from the comet over time. One set of observations, obtained on 1 August 2020 from the Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i’s Maunakea, displays a spiraling stream of molecular gas that reveals the rotation of the comet’s nucleus. The timelapse sequence, compressed to only a few seconds, represents about one fifth of the approximately 7.5-hour rotation period of the comet.

4 August 2020: New detailed observations with NSF NOIRLab facilities reveal a young exoplanet, orbiting a young star in the Hyades cluster, that is unusually dense for its size and age. Weighing in at 25 Earth-masses, and slightly smaller than Neptune, this exoplanet’s existence is at odds with the predictions of leading planet formation theories.

14 July 2020: Rapid follow-up of the optical afterglow from one of the most distant confirmed short gamma-ray bursts (SGRB), thought to be the merger of two neutron stars, is casting new light on these enigmatic objects. The observations, made by the international Gemini Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, confirmed the object’s distance and placed it squarely in the epoch of cosmic high noon, when the Universe was in its “teenage years” and rapidly forming stars. The appearance of an SGRB so early in the history of the Universe could alter theories about their origin, in particular how long it takes two neutron stars to merge to produce these powerful events. Precisely-localized SGRBs are rare, typically only 7–8 are detected per year, and this is the most distant high-confidence SGRB with an optical afterglow detection.

24 June 2020: These orange swirls of dust are snapshots from the largest collection of sharp, detailed images of dusty debris disks around young stars — published this week by an international group of astronomers. The images — captured by the 8-meter Gemini South telescope using the Gemini Planet Imager — illustrate the variety of shapes and sizes that stellar systems can take during their infancy. Unexpectedly, the majority of these systems display evidence of planet formation.

7 May 2020: Researchers using a technique known as “lucky imaging” with the Gemini North telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea have collected some of the highest resolution images of Jupiter ever obtained from the ground. These images are part of a multi-year joint observing program with the Hubble Space Telescope in support of NASA’s Juno mission. The Gemini images, when combined with the Hubble and Juno observations, reveal that lightning strikes, and some of the largest storm systems that create them, are formed in and around large convective cells over deep clouds of water ice and liquid. The new observations also confirm that dark spots in the famous Great Red Spot are actually gaps in the cloud cover and not due to cloud color variations.

14 April 2020: Researchers using the Gemini North telescope on Hawaiʻi’s Maunakea have detected the most energetic wind from any quasar ever measured. This outflow, which is travelling at nearly 13% of the speed of light, carries enough energy to dramatically impact star formation across an entire galaxy. The extragalactic tempest lay hidden in plain sight for 15 years before being unveiled by innovative computer modeling and new data from the international Gemini Observatory.

3 April 2020: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, which in 2019 brought together NSF’s optical and infrared nighttime astronomy under one entity, will now go by the shortened name of NSF NOIRLab (no-wah-lab), abbreviated from its longer formal name. NOIRLab is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona and operates Kitt Peak National Observatory, the international Gemini Observatory, the Community Science and Data Center, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and the operations of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

27 February 2020: Astronomers using the international Gemini Observatory, on Hawaii’s Maunakea, have imaged a very small object in orbit around the Earth, thought to be only a few meters across. According to Grigori Fedorets, the lead astronomer for the observations, the object could be a rare natural rocky object, or it could be something humans put into space decades ago — essentially space debris. “Either way this is a very compelling object and needs more data to determine what it is,” said Fedorets.

20 February 2020: The latest image from the international Gemini Observatory showcases the striking planetary nebula CVMP 1. This object is the result of the death throes of a giant star and is a glorious but relatively short-lived astronomical spectacle. As the progenitor star of this planetary nebula slowly cools, this celestial hourglass will run out of time and will slowly fade from view over many thousands of years.

11 February 2020: Few sights are more romantic than a star-filled sky, but there are fewer and fewer places on Earth where we can still enjoy a truly dark, star-filled sky. Light pollution means we risk losing one of the most romantic spectacles in nature, so this Valentine’s Day astronomers are asking the public to help show their love for the stars by making light pollution observations as part of the Globe at Night program.

6 January 2020: Observations with the 8-meter Gemini North telescope, a program of the NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, have allowed astronomers to pinpoint the location of a Fast Radio Burst in a nearby galaxy — making it the closest known example to Earth and only the second repeating burst source to have its location pinpointed in the sky. The source of this burst of radio waves is located in an environment radically different from that seen in previous studies. This discovery challenges researchers’ assumptions on the origin of these already enigmatic extragalactic events.

19 December 2019: Galaxies lead a graceful existence on cosmic timescales. Over millions of years, they can engage in elaborate dances that produce some of Nature’s most exquisite and striking grand designs. Few are as captivating as the galactic duo known as NGC 5394/5, sometimes nicknamed the Heron Galaxy. This image, obtained by the Gemini Observatory of NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, captures a snapshot of this compelling interacting pair.

2 October 2019: Astronomers have uncovered two historic events in which the Andromeda Galaxy underwent major changes to its structure. The findings shed light not only on the evolution and formation of the Andromeda Galaxy, but to our own Milky Way Galaxy as well. Two of the facilities in NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, Kitt Peak National Observatory and the International Gemini Observatory, played critical roles in the research, now published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

1 October 2019: On 1 October 2019, the nighttime astronomy facilities supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) transitioned to operating as one organization, NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory. The new organization operates five scientific programs: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, the Community Science and Data Center, Kitt Peak National Observatory (all formerly known as the National Optical Astronomy Observatory); Gemini Observatory and the upcoming Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, and is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy.

30 September 2019: Vice President of the Giant Magellan Telescope project and Astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Patrick McCarthy, has been selected as the new Director of the National Science Foundation National Optical-infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab).

26 September 2019: The discovery of the most distant large-scale cluster of galaxies in the very young Universe has astronomers puzzling over how it formed so rapidly.

13 September 2019: The first-ever comet from beyond our Solar System has been successfully imaged by the Gemini Observatory in multiple colors. The image of the newly discovered object, denoted C/2019 Q4(Borisov), was obtained on the night of 9-10 September using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph on the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii’s Maunakea.

29 August 2019: In an unprecedented feat, an American research team discovered hidden secrets of an elusive exoplanet using a powerful new instrument at the 8-meter Gemini North telescope on Maunakea in Hawai‘i. The findings not only classify a Jupiter-sized exoplanet in a close binary star system, but also conclusively demonstrate, for the first time, which star the planet orbits.